Before the Tour de France riders roll through the course, there is the massive parade of sponsors. It’s a pretty huge deal – and was a lot more what our kids thought a parade should be (especially compared with some recently disappointing events) There were floats, lots of music, and tonnes of people throwing out (often rather violently) freebies. The kids got hats, t-shirts, bottle openers, magnetic book marks, newspapers, small packages of dried sausage, Haribo candy, little packages of biscuits, crackers, more hats, samples of laundry soap, those noisy things you blow up and bang together….and a lot more. Unfortunately it was cool and rainy when the caravane rolled through our town…but it would take more than that to keep us away.